Biophilic Education Alliance (BE ALL)

A sustainable, ethical and inclusive vision for the future of education.

The current school system does not foster the fundamental life-skills needed to manage and adapt to an increasingly volatile world, it needs rethinking. Biophilic Education (“BE”) is a pedagogy for empowering the entrepreneurs and world-builders of the future and inspiring new ways of learning for all. We create environments where humans can flourish and explore a passion for life and learning.

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Shortlisted

Overview

HundrED shortlisted this innovation

HundrED has shortlisted this innovation to one of its innovation collections. The information on this page has been checked by HundrED.

Web presence

2021

Established

40

Children

3

Countries

Target group

Students upper

Updated

August 2023

Through modelling and research we hope to demonstrate and inspire the future of education with a more ethical, sustainable and inclusive system for all. Our aim is to shift the values from a knowledge based system to a more holistic process that focusses on collaboration over competition; offers a wider range of life-skills and evidences students work through multimodal on going assessment.

About the innovation

Why did you create this innovation?

The current education system was designed for an Industrial Age. The fast changing digital/AI future and the threats of climate change require adaptability, resilience and problem solving skills that are not currently being provided by schools, instead we have a rise in mental health issues in young people who aren't being valued for their wide range of talents and a workforce skills deficit.

What does your innovation look like in practice?

Using years of educational and neuroscience research and the learning objectives from the UK National Curriculum, we have built a transdisciplinary, project-based curriculum and a portfolio-based, formative assessment framework for students aged 10 to 18.
Our five pathways offer projects where knowledge is continually applied in real world contexts, to improve student engagement and memory. We are interested in supporting individual students to find their passions, interests and talents by offering them more autonomy over their learning in both the content they research and the ways in which they present their learning.
We use a feedback instead of competitive grades. Students write daily 'What Went Well', 'Even Better If' and 'Goals for Next Week' statements and are able to progress at their own pace. Their portfolios and 9 core life-skills are evaluated through a combination of self, peer and mentor assessments which culminate in end of semester reports for each pathway.

How has it been spreading?

We won seed funding from Cambridge University and the Ivan Baines Award for a company 'most likely to change the world'. We currently have two pilot schools, Empathy Middle School in Bali, where we have been developing our pathways since January 2022 and Chatmore British International School, Bermuda. Chatmore received our 10 day pilot in January 2023 and have signed a 1 year curriculum license for September 2023, they will eventually become a master licensee/BE Mentor training centre for the Caribbean.
We are establishing licenses with two new partner schools in Cambridge and we have had considerable interest from other schools globally. Our plan is to gather proof of concept before launching a global sales program and building our own BE School in Cambridge, UK.

If I want to try it, what should I do?

If you are interested in our curriculum and/or BE Mentor training please check out our website, www.davincilifeskills.com and contact Rosina@davincilifeskills.com.

Media

We won the Ivan Baines Award! Of all the awards that we could have won, this is the most heartfelt, Ivan took his own life at 21 and we are fighting for all young people to have a voice, to feel a sense of belonging and to recognise that they are a valuable part of our community. Thank you to Rupert Baines, Dr Alison Wood FRSA and Dr Soraya Jones at Homerton Changemakers, University of Cambridge.

Biophilic Education on Instagram: "Our co-Founder Rosina Dorelli had a wonderful time talking about the future of education with Baroness Estelle Morris, former Labour Secretary of State for Education and Skills (2001-2) and Cambridge University You

We were extremely excited to be presenting the Biophilic Education movement at the COBIS Annual Conference in London. The theme of the conference was about redesigning education for a New Paradigm, so it was great to share our Da Vinci Life-Skills curriculum and assessment framework, which is covering so many of the needs that were being expressed.

We finished a successful pilot with Chatmore British International School, Bermuda. We will now be working with them to develop our high school curriculum for September with our first mentor training sessions taking place!

Our new team member Toby Pallatt took the Chatmore Students in Bermuda on a role playing adventure to Ancient Rome this week as part of our Multiverse Games Pathway. There were puzzles, riddles, battles and a lot of haggling in the Roman market. Our Multiverse Games Pathway builds teamwork, problem solving, creativity and strategy skills, and so much more, while exploring subjects like History.

We spoke at the World Education Summit in March about our Biophilic Education movement. We are sharing our vision for the future of education with Angela Fubler the Founder of Chatmore British International School, Bermuda, where we have our second pilot of the Da Vinci Life-Skills Curriculum. https://www.linkedin.com/posts/da-vinci-life-skills_futureofeducation-worldedsummit-activity-70328393930

We are looking forward to presenting at the Rethinking Ed conference with Zubair Junjunia FRSA to discuss how AI is affecting education and how we can use it in a positive way as we redesign a curriculum for the future. Come join us. https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/rethinking-ed-2023-tickets-602718887417

We are excited to announce that we are accepting student applications for our first BE Learning Hub at Arrington Village Hall, next to Wimpole Hall, South of Cambridge this September. https://www.linkedin.com/posts/da-vinci-life-skills_we-are-excited-to-announce-that-we-are-accepting-activity-7085927231566295040-OszZ?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop

Piloted at Empathy Middle School Bali in 2022. Full Five Project Pathways https://www.instagram.com/p/Cm0e_Z_jRP5/

Implementation steps

10 day taster pilot

Schools invite us to deliver a 10 day taster pilot at their school. We provide two BE Mentors, all the content and the majority of materials for a school and relevant teacher/s to experience a sample of our full Da Vinci Life-Skills Curriculum over the course of two weeks. This is the first, observation section of our BE Mentor Training, it is a chance to see how we deliver each pathway and get a deeper understanding of our Biophilic Education values.

Year 1 licence agreement

After a successful report from the 10 day pilot a school can sign a 1 year licence agreement. This agreement incorporates BE Mentor Training for one or more teachers (50 hours of online support over the year) and Year 1 of the curriculum content, including all teaching resources and our DVQ assessment framework. We provide flexible adaptations for delivery, e.g: in full to a separate year 7 & 8 cohort; half day alongside iGCSE; one pathway 3-4 hours a week in place of a subject like DT; etc.

5 year license agreement

After a Year 1 review and the awarding of Level 1 BE Mentor Certificates to the relevant teachers a school can sign our 5 Year license agreement for the provision of all the curriculum content and teaching resources. All new curriculum content provided requires an additional cost for online BE Mentor support. We also offer additional, online BE Mentor support at an hourly rate.

License renewal

Licenses can be renewed for another 5 years at the end of each period. Our licenses are costed on a per student basis, so licenses can be reviewed each year to incorporate more or less students.

DVQ External Validation & MTCs

When students are leaving a school we can offer external accreditation of the DVQs and schools can work with our partners, Master Transcript Consortium to build a college and job application interface that incorporates their digital portfolios and feedback reports.

Level 2 BE Mentor Development

Level 2 BE Mentor Training offers specialist training in individual pathways. With this certificate teachers can create project content in partnership with the BE Alliance and gain a percentage of the fee from schools that license that content.

Level 3 BE Mentor Training and Master Licensees

With a Level 3 BE Mentor Certificate teachers can teach other BE Mentors and schools can become Master Licensees/Mentor Development centres working in a franchise partnership with BE Alliance.